Return of the Games
by MoreAnonPlease
Summary: Katniss failed in her mission so long ago, after giving the districts time to get in fighting condition again after the war, it is the Return of the Games.
1. Fatal News

Return of the Games

Finnick threw his net and it landed square on me; I stumbled for a few steps before tumbling over onto the ground. He approached me and I saw him raise him gleaming trident high in the air. It started its descent toward my heart, just as it plunged into me I heard a voice.

"Dara!" My mother's voice called from right above me with a worried look on her face

"You looked like you were having nightmares again, it's time to get up anyways can you buy some bread before the reaping." My heart stopped as I remembered today was the reaping, it was the first time we had the Hunger Games since the rebels lost the war fifteen years ago. Instead of watching the ones that were currently happening we had watched the most brutal, terrifying ones that The Capitol could find as a constant reminder that they would one day return. That day was today, though I was 12 and should not be so scared, as the older kids have a much higher chance of being reaped, I was.

I did as my mother had asked and went to the bakery to buy one of their pieces of bread. I bought one of the old, dry pieces as the fresh pieces costs too much for people in the Seam. We're poor, even for the Seam. My family consists of my mother and I, neither of us can do any work as my father got beaten to death for opposing The Capitol as an aftermath of the war. We live on money from random odd jobs and our neighbours who are kind enough to help out. District 12 is still in rough shape from being bombed years ago. The Capitol allowed us to rebuild but did not help us in the construction, we were forced to use tools out of stone and wood we found in the forests far enough away to have survived the blast. As a result even the richest among us had crude shelters. The only person in our town with a nice house is Peeta Mellark, he was one of the winners of the 74th Hunger Games. The other winner was Katniss Everdeen, she was killed in the war with the rebels. She was almost at President Snow's residence when she was captured and hung publicly in the streets. Peeta was allowed to remain alive because after torturing him for a long time, he was deathly terrified of Katniss and has never been the same since. He lives in the old Victor's Village, the only surviving part of the town after the bombings. Also, the people that were reaped from District 12 would be mentored by him, as he is the only remaining winner of District 12.

One my way back I saw everyone tensing up for the reaping that was coming up soon, nobody wanted to go in District 12 where it was pretty much sure death. In Districts 1,2, and 4, people train their whole lives for the Games, these people are called careers. Although it's not technically allowed, you can expect to see them every year anyway. The poor Districts very rarely win because we are not well fed or trained, District 12 is also at a disadvantage as they don't start working in the mines until eighteen. So we do not get skills we learned in our careers.

I returned to my house and my mother had a quick meal of dry bread and a cut up piece of apple that one of our neighbours brought in from the market. We knew that in less than one hour the dreaded reaping would start, and with that the Hunger Games will return to us once again. We were forced to treat the Games like they were a celebration and we all had to watch them, the parents and siblings of the chosen tributes would have to watch their own family member be slaughtered in the arena. It was a horrible thing no matter which way you looked at it. I'd have my name in very few times compared to the older kids with larger families, you see we had something called Tessera, it gave us food supplies for one person for a year. The drawback is that we'd get our name entered in the reaping one time for each Tessera, so families that needed seven or eight Tesserae had a much higher chance of being reaped than me, who only needed two.

I saw everyone was heading toward the town centre, where Elesa Trinket would tell us who has been chosen to be the tributes for the district. Elesa had an aunt who also had this job for District 12, Effie Trinket, she always wanted to be moved to a wealthier district and finally got her wish this year. She was now at District 4 where lots of careers came from. My mother and I went to the centre of the town with everyone else where Elesa was standing on a stage of sorts along with Peeta Mellark who was sitting down with his pale skin and sunken in cheeks, he was in very bad shape for his rather young age. Once everyone was gathered around the centre of town Elesa spoke up.

"Welcome District 12 to the 76th annual Hunger Games." She started in that stupid Capitol accent "You all know you have been very rebellious 15 years ago, and The Capitol will not let this go unpunished in these games." She finished. Everyone shrieked and some booed, overall everyone did not like this news.

"So we have set a few stipulations in place to make the Hunger Games a little more exciting than most other years." She pulled out a parchment of paper from her strange Capitol cape, I was guessing that was the current fashion. "Our first stipulation is similar to our 50th Games, we will have forty-eight tributes instead of twenty-four, four from each District" She read off the scroll "Secondly, for extra punishment, these Games will be taking place with only twelve year old kids" She put the scroll in her pocket.


	2. To The Capital!

I returned to my room and stumbled into my bed, I took off my sweater but decided my clothes were fine for sleeping as I didn't feel like rummaging through the cupboards. I climbed into the bed they had neatly set for me and it was even softer than all the fancy couches I sat on today. Today was one of the longest days of my life, just this morning my mother sent me to the bakery to by bread. Now I was headed off into an unknown territory with forty-seven others who had the goal of killing me. I knew that even if I didn't win, I wouldn't go down without a fight. Still pondering all these things I felt sleep wash over me and in a few moments I was out.

Chapter 2

My heart sank as she spoke, I heard nothing as the entire audience was taken back by the upsetting news. My chances have gone up a lot from these two rules. I figured that of the around forty kids in my class, thirty of them were twelve. That meant that if fifteen were boys and fifteen were girls I had a one in seven shot of being reaped, maybe more since some of them did not need the Tesserae. I knew that now I actually had a right to be scared.

After the new rules were set, they carried on with how the reaping would usually start, our mayor stepped up to the podium and began reading the speech that we had heard all too often. Nobody really listened since we all knew what he was going to say but it was still a tradition that they did every year. A camera man stuck a camera in my face as they were doing to all the other twelve year old kids, just to televise their reaction to the news to all of Panem. This year all the cameramen stood around in plain view on the ground unlike other years when we could see they were hidden on buildings while we watched the tapes. I looked around to my mother where she sat in suspense.

"Now I will read the list of names of our former winners" I heard him say a bit more cheerfully then the rest of the speech, and he did read their names, all four of them. Peeta stood up on cue and gave a curt nod to the camera, he then sat back down. Some of us cheered politely, but none of really like him at all. Mostly he just sat around his fancy house getting others to bring him food and drink, if anybody were to disturb him he would just yell at them until they left.

The mayor stepped away from the podium and Elesa took his place, her sleek black hair shone in the bright sunlight. Elesa was nothing like her aunt, she didn't even fake being excited about this whole ordeal.

"Welcome to the 76th annual Hunger Games, may your death be a glorious one" she said in a bored voice. She says a few words about how winning means you're rich, losing means you're dead and then said "Ok, it's time to get to the reaping. Girls are first." She said "To die" she mumbled quietly. I couldn't believe she was being so blunt and prejudiced.

She reached into the large glass ball and pulled out two names and spoke in a clear voice

"The two girl tributes for District 12 will be Marion Falcsha and Katya Nechayeva." I knew Katya a bit, she was in my class, though she usually mainly kept to herself. She walked forward boldly trying to keep her composure.

Marion on the other hand I did not know at all, School was required so I was sure that I would know the tributes but I have never heard of her. Katya reached the stage first and stepped up the stairs, taking the mayor's hand for help. It was obvious she was trying to play it just right for the most support from sponsors. I stood on my toes and saw a small girl approach the stage also, and she wasn't just kind of small, the four foot tall stage was taller than she was. The mayor also offered her help but she shrugged it aside and ran up the stairs, she almost slipped and gave a squeaky scream while she started the fall backward. Katya held her steady and got an evil stare in return. Elesa laughed a little at her spirit.

"Will there be any volunteers?" She asked out of pity for the small girl, it was the first time I saw her show any act of kindness. We waited a few seconds but all we heard was one of the camera men coughing his guts out.

"Well, then that's that" Elesa said "Our two tributes will be Katya Nechayeva and Marion Falcsha" Everyone clapped, Katya looked like she was in quite good shape, rather well fed. Marion was not so lucky, she looked like she hadn't eaten in her lifetime. Nobody seemed to know who she was either, I looked around for someone who could be one of her parents but saw nobody.

"Now it is time that we choose the boy tributes" Elesa said, interrupting my thoughts, she sounded a bit less bored than she did when we started the reaping. She reached into the other big silver ball and this time dramatically stirred the names around for a bit before picking two out

"The two boy tributes for District 12 will Drew Zei and Sky Lonora." Elesa once again crushed the hearts of two families. But there was a bit of an uproar in the crowd, I couldn't make out what they were shouting but the mayor must have for he went and whispered something into Elesa's ear.

She spoke once again "It seems that Drew does not follow the requirements for the Games this year, his birthday was three days ago so he therefore is thirteen and unable to participate this year." She reached back into the silver bowl "We do need two District 12 males so Azzandara Sazor."

My heart stopped, I heard my name echo off the walls of the rough houses, all other sound was blocked out of my ears. I slowly looked up to see Sky already on the stage with his tough built body and full stomach, he was the nephew of Peeta after all. I knew everybody was waiting for me so I tried my hardest to walk firmly up to the stage where they all awaited my arrival. I heard my mother crying in the background, I wondered how she would survive when I was away, for she did not have a job. If I came back I would give us both easy lives forever. If not I would not only kill myself, but potentially my mother as well.

I reached the stage and climbed slowly up the steps and looked at the crowd of District 12, I moved my eyes directly into the cameras with a cold stare. Peeta got out of his chair for the second time since the reaping started and shook all of our hands, he seemed to actually show some emotion that his nephew was most likely going to be brutally killed in the arena. He went over to the podium and spoke a few words about he would try his hardest to bring home another victor and keep our streak going. He was obviously referring to how he and Katniss won the last real Hunger Games as nobody really won the 75th. It was interrupted with 6 contenders left which started a war, Peeta was tortured and that is most likely how he became the wreck that he is today. Everybody cheered at his words but nobody really believed them to be true.

After Peeta spoke they start to play the national anthem of Panem. After it is over some Peacekeepers grab hold of us and lead us to the Justice Building where we would stay until the train was ready to take us to the Capitol where we would be pampered and interviewed for around a week before the Games would actually start. Also if we were to have any visitors they would come now.

Once we got to the building they took us each to separate rooms, they were much more fancy then our own houses though they were even not of their former splendour as the old ones were blown up in the explosions. I sat down on one of the couches and immediately the door opened and my mother came into the room. It was hard not to cry when my mother was so emotional and was trying to comfort me through her tears. After a few minutes she got more serious and started to speak regularly.

"While you are gone I will be able to survive from the compensation that the rest of District 12 will give me, but that will only last so long and I will have to find a job. I may not be able to as I am fairly frail, so you have to swear to me that you will win these games" She said with a desperate look in her eyes.

"I will try my hardest" I said in an annoyed voice, she can't tell me that I have to win, it's not like she has ever done it.

"Good" She said as her voice softened and she looked as she was about to cry again. She left the room for my sake as she knew tributes that cried never got sponsors, they only sponsored the ones they thought had a chance to win. I knew for her sake I would have to go with my word and try as hard as I could to win.

I lied down on the couch not expecting anymore guests and waited for the hour to pass, after it was around ten minutes until we hopped on the train and left most likely forever the mayor stumbled into my room.

"I know it's customary for the tributes to bring something from their districts into the arena so I decided to bring each of you a bracelet with a picture of coal on it." He said as he handed me a bracelet "I have to quickly get to Sky's room before you leave so I hope you survive, bye." He then left as soon as he came. I shoved the bracelet in my pocket and went back to sitting down.

A few minutes later the peacekeepers returned and led us to a train station, I noticed the only one of us who cried was Marion who was trying her hardest to hide any evidence of it before the public could see. Maybe she was trying a small but tough approach that would either go well, or backfire totally. There were many tactics you could use to try to gain supporters, most people chose one and stuck to it but I have no idea what I could do to make me seem more charming.

Once we arrived at the train station I could see why crying at this point would be such a bad idea, it was not an overstatement to say that it was packed. People had cameras all over the place broadcasting to the world. The peacekeepers quickly ushered us past the people and got us onto the train, not a slow coal train but a huge, sleek, fast capitol train. As soon as they knew that we were all on it took off. As we sped off I looked at the window and saw the whole world as a blur because of the speed of the train. I then remembered my bracelet and took a closer look at it, I flipped it around a bit and noticed that one of the chain inks was a button. I pushed it in and one of the main decorations on the bracelet opened and let out white powder. I smelt it and realized it was the same drug that often got kids kicked out of wrestling tournaments at my school, it accelerated muscle growth. I was amazed the mayor would go to illegal lengths to help us. Without a second doubt it was in the trash.

I went forward to the quarters that they gave us, it was bigger than mine and my neighbour's house put together. We had a bedroom with dressers stocked full of clothes, a dressing area, and a bathroom with showers that had hot water, cold water, and everything in between. It also had what must be over a hundred buttons that did different things. I took a shower and then looked through my dressers, there was a lot of odd clothes in here. I decided I'd wear a simple black and white outfit consisting of jeans, a shirt, and a sweater.

I heard a knock on my door and Elesa collected me for dinner, I stopped my mouth from watering when I saw all the food, I decided I wouldn't like the rest of Panem to see me drooling. I sat down and the table and waited for the others to arrive. Sky was already there, he sat across from me at the table talking to Peeta.

"How did you win the games anyway" Sky asked his uncle, we never saw this one on TV, probably because The Capitol was not too keen on showing us them being outsmarted. Peeta didn't answer.

"Katniss looked after him and helped him become victor after Peeta saved her life." I answered instead, my mother told me about it once when I asked how such a grumpy beat-up man could have won. It turns out that back in the day, he was actually a likeable man.

Peeta looked outraged at me

"Katniss did nothing except get me this false leg" He shouted pulling up the bottom of his pant leg showing us his fake leg. He got up and returned to him room.

"Great now my mentor, the biggest hope I have to win this is mad at" I thought with a worried look. They never managed to quite cure Peeta of the insanity caused by the torture they gave him, they made him have nonstop nightmares about Katniss.

Marion and Katya arrived a few minutes later and we started to eat, I looked around the tables and saw every type of food you could imagine. I took some of everything and started to eat it all, halfway through eating Peeta returned.

"I'm sorry for telling information you may not have wanted us to know." I said to him, I wasn't really that sorry but more didn't want him mad at me.

"I overreacted." He answered. He sat down and ate supper without us talking any more. After supper I decided I needed to learn where Marion was from, as it was odd there was a girl my age that did not go to school.

"Hey Marion" I said as I approached her. She looked startled and answered in a slightly ridiculous squeaky voice

"Hello." She spoke warily, it was obvious she did not enjoy conversation too much.

"How come you don't go to school" I said, I realized that it didn't feel like I was talking to somebody my age, she seemed much younger.

"Well," She started "I don't think I should discuss this with you." She finished. I was annoyed, there must be some reason why she doesn't go, or the Peacekeepers would be after her in an instant to get in school.

"Fair enough." I say in a polite tone as I walk away. I see Katya heading towards another room in a train and am notified that now will be the time where we are given an opportunity to see who we are up against. I sit down on a soft velvet couch as they start the footage, I decide to pick out my biggest competitors.

The footage naturally starts with District 1, it's just the regular career tributes besides one girl named Saffron is called and their dad starts trying to bribe the crowd to take her place, most of the career girls laugh at her leading me to believe she isn't very well liked, at all. District 2 is the same, they have stupid names, but the same as you see most years. District 3 has a boy named Myles who has an arm missing, you don't usually see volunteers from District 3, so he is staying in. District 4 was careers like usual. District 5 had a male and a female tribute who seemed to be very close and were petrified that they had to fight each other. They will probably become allies early on. District 7 has a huge male tribute who I find hard to believe is 12, though they run background checks on everybody so he must be. There are no real threats in any of the other tributes. Finally it comes to District 12 and I can see how terrified I really looked when I was reaped.

"I'll have to make that up in the interviews and judging of potential." I thought to myself. It still wasn't quite time to go to bed so I decided I'd try to make friends with Katya, she looked like she would be a good person to ally with. I noticed how she didn't really look too scared of being reaped, she was either really good at hiding her true emotions, really brave, or she wanted to go.

"Hey Katya." I called to her after the videos of the reapings were over.

"What?" She answered in a soft voice which nobody really heard that much.

"Did you want to come to the arena or something?" I started "You're the only wanna who didn't seem scared while being reaped, besides the careers of course"

"Well I just think like this, if I win I bring riches, if I lose I'm one less mouth to feed. Either way I'm helping my family out" She said with a slight smile, I didn't know if I was supposed to take her seriously or not.

"Well that's sure an optimistic look on things, you could win this whole thing you know." I told her.

"I know" She smirked as she walked into her room. I decided that if not a little cocky, she was a dangerous competitor. I also decided that I would go to bed now, tomorrow was a big day, I had to act it just right if I wanted sponsors.

I returned to my room and stumbled into my bed, I took off my sweater but decided my clothes were fine for sleeping as I didn't feel like rummaging through the cupboards. I climbed into the bed they had neatly set for me and it was even softer than all the fancy couches I sat on today. Today was one of the longest days of my life, just this morning my mother sent me to the bakery to by bread. Now I was headed off into an unknown territory with forty-seven others who had the goal of killing me. I knew that even if I didn't win, I wouldn't go down without a fight. Still pondering all these things I felt sleep wash over me and in a few moments I was out.


End file.
